I thought it couldn't last...the six or seven week spell during which I haven't sent any contributions to the List! Thanks Nigel for calling back out my French vineyard -induced revery. As you so correctly noted, I have been .."holed up in rural France" just sitting in the sun, drinking chilled Sancerre wine, and admiring my latest crop of French collectable lightweights. There's no Herses or Singers among them, but there are Parettes, Frankils, Rene Andres, Reyhands, Howells (yes! they are French) among the rarities. But I digress.
Mystery often surrounds Ron Kitching's cycle-building activities, but one thing is almost certain, he himself never built frames nor did the company that bore his name. He was always far too busy doing a great job of being an entrepreneur and making money, to actually build frames or bikes. As for the Lambert connection, it is likely that as a supplier of some accessories to Lambert, via the ACCAL branch of his empire, Ron could have also acted as distributor, as he did for the Speedwell range of titanium frames, and for the Kirk cast magnesium frames.
I first traded, as a retailer, with Ron in the mid-70s. At that time all his frames were built by MKM, in which company he had a financial interest, of sorts. Rumours did suggest that he had had a few frames built by a retailer/builder based in Keighley, before that time, but this story has not been verified. Perhaps Wes Mason, now a member of the List, could verify some of these points?
It seems to me that Ron was quite happy until the 70s just importingframes from the likes of Andre Bertin, Cinelli, Zeus, Cizeron ( possibly his Jacques Anquetil models), the odd Geminiani etc
After MKM finally closed down..was that in the early years of the 80s (?)..Ron's frames were built by Steve Elsworth, the former foreman-builder at MKM, who set up his own business first of all as Omega cycles (no connection with the later builder using that name). Steve was probably one of the finest builders active in the UK during the 70s and 80s, and was responsible, as I recall, for building all the MKM "Ultimate" SWB time-trial frames at MKM.
Come on Wes..tell it to us as it was!
Norris Lockley...holed up now in a very, very wet, Settle, UK